Using telerik sitefinity with Arvixe shared plans

There are a lot of ways to install teleriksitefinity CMS on hosted web sites.
Doing it on Arvixe site is pretty easy since you have a lot of freedom

With this guide I want to show you how to do this step by step.
We will install a “Sitefinity Web CMS 4.0” site on a personal APS account.
This is the “smallest” account – it will also work with the bigger ones.
The only exception are VPS or dedicated hosts using “sitefinity direct installation”.

Prerequisites:

Microsoft SQL Server Express 2008 installed (on your local machine if possible)
You can also use a full SQL Server – just change your connection string before you deploy – this is described later!

Sitefinity 4.0 RC downloaded and installed

Visual Studio 2010 (express) installed
This is not a must – I’ll also (shortly) point out, how to do the things with nothing more than FTP uploads.

Since my site is “ManniAT” and it will be Sitefinity I combined booth somehow.

Next create a database user (optional – you can also use an existing user).

Be sure that the newly created database has a checkmark at this dialog.

Now notice: Database name, Database-User name and password

Next open SQL Express manager and create a new database.
Please excuse that the following (SQL Manager) screen shots are in German.

First choose create Database. In the following dialog give the database a name.

Be sure it is the same Database name you used in the Arvixe web panel.

Next go to “security/Logins” (Sicherheit/Anmeldungen in my screenshots) right click and choose “new login”.

In the following dialog take care and

Choose “SQL Server login”

Use exactly the name you used in the Arvixe web panel for the database user

Use exactly the same password you used in the Arvixe web panel for the database user password

Remove the checkmark at “Enforce Password policy”

In the same dialog navigate to “User assignment” check your newly created DB and in the list below check “db owner”.

Now we have created a database similar to the one on our Arvixe web space.

Next start sitefinity manager and create a new project. (Use a local path you can easily find later).

If you are new to Sitefinity or use the free community edition just check “Community edition” when asked for a license.
Else use your (purchased) license key.

Creating the project will launch your browser and the first dialog ask for a database to use.

In the following dialog ensure that you

Use SQL Server NOT SQL Express!

Use localhost\sqlexpress as your server name
If your instance has a different name / port use this – in that case we will later change it to localhost\sqlexpress

Use the username and password as you choose when you created your SQL Express login.

Use the name of the database we created a step before.

This and the next steps need “full trust” for the web server (currently running on your local machine as “sitefinity server”).
Although Arvixe offers “full trust” (simply request it from support) there is no need for it in this case.
Sitefinity will run with “medium trust” after the database is initialized.

After setting the database your are asked to provide the “master user” for the new sitefinity site.

Take good care of this credentials! In the next dialog use the credentials to login to your new site.

From the top menu choose pages – and select create a page:

Give the page a title and a name.

Don’t care too much – we just create a page since this step (almost) finalizes database initialization.

The last step here is to add some content.

Drag a content control on you page and click edit content.

Enter some text and save it.
Choose Publish on the page menu.

Optionally you can set the new page as homepage.

You can also Click “View” to check if everything works so far.

With this step we have initialized our database – from now on sitefinity will run on “medium trust” (default on our Arvixe sites).

Close the browser.

Visual Studio users will now…

Choose “Edit in visual studio” from the sitefinity project manager.

OPTIONAL:
In Visual Studio create your masterpages, styles, items…
Also create styles, templates and so on

If you use a different SQL Server than localhost\sqlexpress 1433 you must now change the database settings.

Start the backup – when it finished open the backup folder in explorer.

Right click on your backup file and choose “Send to / ZIP compressed folder”.
Our local work (except the running upload) is done.

Now open (again) your Arvixe Web panel.
Navigate to the database you created before and from “Maintenance tools”

Choose restore and select Uploaded file

Locate the zip we made before (using the browse button) and click restore.

Next navigate to the website you are using to host your Sitefinity site.

Since Sitefinity runs with .NET 4.0 go to Extensions and choose this.

We normally do not need Perl, PHP and CGI bin – therefor is disabled this (optional).
The only important thing is to select 4.0 integrated for ASP.NET.

Click Update NOW!!

Now we have to face a problem occurring with web services and authentication.
These services (without customization) support only one authentication schema.
This means we have to disable Windows Authentication.

IMPORTANT: this DISABLES settings at the site via Web Panel. Therefor other settings must be done BEFORE this step!
You can re-enable it later (for maintenance) – while it is enabled Sitefinity will not work!!
There are also tips on the Sitefinity website how to workaround this “problem” changing web.config.